Instagram link: https://www.instagram.com/nascent_carbon/          Horror wears many faces. But perhaps the most chilling of them all is the mask of ordinariness. When cruelty comes calling dressed in the robes of banality, its power to inflict pain and cause fear is enhanced. There is nothing striking about either Seema Mohan Gavit or her sister Renuka Shinde to set them apart. Here are two sisters who could have been just another face in the crowd, but their horrific past has shaped their present and left a noose-shaped question mark looming over their future. As the Pune-based human rights lawyer Aseem Saroday says, “Their ordinariness makes their actions even more horrifying.” On August 31, 2006, the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence on Seema and her sister Renuka for killing five children, mostly toddlers in Pune, Kolhapur, and Nashik during 1990 and 1996. Ujjwal Nikam, special public prosecutor, who sought death penalty for them recalls a chilling fact. “We limited the period of killing to six years. However, this had been going on for longer than that. The women could not remember how many children they had killed.” Seema, Renuka, their mother Anjanbai, and Renuka's husband Kiran Shinde were petty thieves, who kidnapped children to be used as a cover for their activities. It started in 1990 when Renuka was caught pickpocketing at the Chatursinghi temple in Pune. Her son, Ashish, from her first marriage was with her. Renuka used him as her defence, convincing the crowd that a woman with a child couldn't possibly be a thief. On realising that a child could save them from tricky situations, the gang began kidnapping children to be used as a front. And the children would be killed if they became a problem. The  mother and daughters were already charged with petty crimes when they started their killing spree. Seema's father was a truck driver. Anjanabai's second husband, Mohan, who was Renuka's father, abandoned them and moved in with another woman. He had two daughters from his second marriage; Anjanabai and her daughters started their killing spree with Mohan's elder daughter. Temple compounds, railway stations, fairs, bus stations… any crowded place was a hunting ground for them. And Kiran Shinde drove the getaway car, a Fiat. Most of the kidnapped children belonged to poor families. “Maybe, the parents tried to file a complaint and were turned away. Maybe, they were unable to do so. The kidnapping reports did not start coming in till very late,” recalls Nikam. The first kidnapping victim was a beggar woman's one-year-old son, Santosh. They used him as a distraction. If one of them was caught pickpocketing, the other woman carrying the child would fling him to the floor. Hurt, the child would start crying and it would create a commotion and distract the crowd. Later the child would be ruthlessly killed if it became a nuisance or a burden. “Santosh was hurt when he was hurled to the floor. Denied medication, the baby's wounds festered and he was crying uncontrollably. Anjanabai shut him up by bashing his head repeatedly against an iron rod,” says an investigating officer. The sisters watched their mother's gruesome act while munching on vada pav. Seema Gavit and Renuka Shinde Kidnapping children and force them into begging and petty thefts The case of the sisters on death row Seema Gavit and Renuka Shinde: Scary Tale of Wrong Parenting Leading To Capital Punishment Posham Pa is an upcoming ZEE5 Original film on this story.